The “sin” thread – rebooted. For the original “sin” thread – go here:
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This discussion is continued from the “against gods” thread …the original sin thread went way off-course… this one starts over with the original post from the sin thread and incorporates its on-topic responses:
– Sagesound, in the “against gods” thread
I didn’t call it sin when I was an atheist. I don’t recall it ever coming up in my ethics text. But, see what I wrote on happiness in my second post of my “Faith vs. Works” thread (a short version of an essay I earned a 95% on in my ‘critical thinking’ class):
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I also touched on ‘sin’ in the original post of the same thread:
Sin is the obstacle of happiness (happiness, ultimately, being realized in oneness with God) – it separates us from God. Getting rid of sin is essentially righting a wrong, ending separation from God, bringing us back to oneness with God – atonement. This understanding was developed using OT sacrifices and Jesus’ NT sacrifice – communicating that it is God who provides the means of atonement – it is He who rights the wrong and brings (in my case, yanks) us back to Him. If we reject that, we reject Him. If we reject Him, we reject Love, Truth, and Life.
To Sartre, I would’ve said that to sin is to act or not act in bad faith (James 4:17). Not acting includes not helping someone who needs help, because our idols take priority (Matt 25:31-46; this passage also defines sin against God). Note that the concept of “switching perspectives” (was this a concept Nietzsche supported… or just someone with whom I used to play poker?) is covered by the Golden Rule, as you would want someone to put themselves in your shoes when considering how to behave with you. Sartre denounces private virtues as “belonging to someone with an uneasy conscience,” and I concur, except in the case of those without conscience, who mislabel their interests as “virtues”. So, while Sartre supports subjectivism, in that he sees man as the originator of value, he also undermines it, by dismissing private virtues (refer to the relativist fallacy, and consider the phrase ‘subjectivist fallacy’). In my thread on Dawkins’ “meme” I point to the reality that some values, temporal and finite, originate from man (subjectivity), but God’s values are eternal and unchanging (and we can subjectively choose His values, which brings us to Keirkegaard’s “Subjectivity is Truth” – not that I’m totally in his camp).
Thankyou to Sethesh for referring me to Wikipedia’s etymology of ‘sin’…
– found on Wikipedia, referred to by Sethesh (granted, without your interpretation)
What is the mark (or the point) referred to above that has been missed (Romans 3:23)? --the glory of God, the way humans were intended to be. The glory we had before sin poisoned the well, is restored by Christ’s sacrifice (Heb 2:5-9). When we sin, we become “alienated from ourselves, each other, our environment and ultimately from the ground of being itself,” as felix dakat mentioned.
– Dan
Without the microscope and the technology which progressed to it, they would not have understood even if He did teach them about microbiology. The uncleanness typified sin, and how the uncleanness was dealt with made them distinct from their pagan neighbors, rather than leaving a vacuum to be filled by their pagan neighbors’ fertility cults, which involved temple prostitution, child sacrifice, etc… There is a lot we have left to learn about the universe. If God were to reveal it all to us now (assuming we’d be able to recognize all the information given in the revelation), many of us would wish He had let us find out for ourselves. Discovery is a gift. If one wants to know more than one has access to with the current theories, and one is following God – all one needs to do is ask, and God will lead him/her in the right direction… Most importantly: if someone wants to make things right between you and them, do you whip out a human biology text and start talking about cytotoxic T cells?
– Dan
The point is love, but without the option to sin (miss the point), love (voluntary) is impossible. The choice is not in the past… we are presented with it every moment. You mention “a sense of accomplishment, a sense of security, a sense of gratification” when a Christian freely chooses love – and I refer you to what I’ve written above regarding happiness. You mention “the price paid is life itself” – yes. My old life is dead. Good riddance.
Thank you for referring us to this definition:
– Dan
You, anchored in the physical universe, a biological human, are subject to many mechanisms beyond your control. This is disturbing only if you desire more control than you will ever realistically, naturally have.
The point of Jesus’ sacrifice (and the OT sacrifices) was not to destroy the physical to gain the metaphysical – it was to point out how precious our lives are – to point out how sin messes it up – and to point out how God restores us to a loving relationship with Him (true life) even though we mess it up.
Sin is marketed as moral “independence” though you may view it as “independence from morality” (btw, did you read what I wrote on Kierkegaard above?) – on that note, as to the moral/immoral, natural/unnatural aspect of what you said – I will tell you (most of) what I’ve told kingdaddy in the ‘madness as spiritual suffering’ thread:
– myself, in reply to kingdaddy in the “madness” thread
For Sagesound (you said in the old thread I didn’t explain how ‘sin’ originated… I reviewed Nietzsche’s “The Religious Mood” and “The Natural History of Morals” from “Beyond Good and Evil” (contained within an anthology I can’t toss out because, a) it doesn’t belong to me, and b) it contains work by authors which I’d hate to throw out) – and here is my short answer (I chose Nietzsche 'cause you referred me to him previously) – The law (which reveals sin, though sin existed before it) was not given to enslave us, it was given to those who had been set free by God (read Exodus), to those God intended to be free and to freely follow the law (of love) (hence free will) with the goal that it would become written on our hearts (Jer 31:31) and followed out of love for it, with His strength (Rom 6:14, 16-23; 7-4-6, 14-25; 8:1-15) – for we are all too weak to love (uncorrupted love) on our own (and we were never meant to). On our own, we adapt love into what it is not (still perhaps calling it love, though it isn’t, or feigning to abandon it altogether, though we cannot). That pretty much sums up sin.
If that bums ya out, go back up and read the happiness part.
